CHAPTER 1
Female.
Mark Robertson’s nose twitched, and he moved to explore the scent.
Fertile.
He pursued, the spice of her as sharp as a hook.
A sound grated on his nerves and his hackles rose in irritation. The female was here and he was already thick with the drive to mount her.
Close.
He would hunt her, and she would succumb.
Part of him was uncomfortable with that predatory thought. It disliked the absolute ruthlessness with which he would claim his mate. But that voice was tiny and uninteresting. When it came to mating, there were no limits. Offspring were imperative. Taking a female urgent. He would hunt this female unto the ends of the earth.
If only the damned noise would stop.
He blocked out the sound, refocusing on the female, but she proved elusive. The scent was there, the draw undeniable, but he had to wake to find her.
Wake.
He did, though the struggle to consciousness was hard. He’d been dreaming, he realized. And someone was making a noise that pounded in his temples. The grizzly part of him wanted to obliterate the sound with his claws. The man in him barely had the wherewithal to comprehend it was the door buzzer.
He shoved to his feet, his movements lumbering and awkward. He banged into a desk and howled in rage, the sound waking him enough to open his eyes.
Home.
He was in the place bear and man coexisted in relative peace, but the sound was forcing him to leave it. That didn’t bode well for whatever idiot was leaning on the buzzer. He inhaled, pulling in the scent of humming electronics, stale coffee, and fertile female.
Well, at least that part had been real. A woman stood on his doorstep, which made her easy prey.
He stumbled to the stairs, climbing angrily out of his basement den. The raw buzzer sound ate at his control, and each moment it continued made his teeth bare with fury. The man in him prayed it was the female, otherwise the grizzly would kill it. This was his most dangerous time—when bear and man fought against each other for control. It made the animal unpredictable and the man insane.
The clamor paused, giving him a split second of relief. And then it began again, the renewed racket even worse because of the brief respite.
He had no dexterity to manage the locks. The bear tried to rip the door open, but it was steel reinforced and would not budge, though God knew he tried. The frustration nearly undid the bear, but the man took control. He slammed his hand down twice trying to break the lock before he thought to twist the deadbolt. The chain was harder, requiring more focus, and his higher cortex was recruited to handle the fine manipulation. Higher cortex was controlled by the man, which forced the beast back into sullen bitterness.
This was why I layered a dozen different locks on his door, the man gloated. So it would require higher brain function to open and thereby save whatever idiot thought they could wake him. The bear remained silent, biding its time until the man managed the locks. And when the task was done, the bear attacked.
It surged to the fore, hauling on the doorknob with all its strength. It still required the man to grip the knob, but beyond that, the grizzly was in control. Worse, it was whipped into a frenzy by the buzzer and the female.
Still, the door would not open.
He roared in frustration. The grizzly wanted to rear up in fury, but since the man was already standing, this merely reinforced his upright position. And with that, a large yellow sign came into view. It was a black arrow on a yellow placard, the color so bright it hurt his eyes even in the semi-light of the front alcove.
It took the man to understand it. And it took another eon of that relentless sound for the man to establish control. That, of course, was why the newest lock and sign were there. It could only be managed by a man. The bear would destroy it, thereby trapping him indoors forever.
But he was a man still. At least enough so that he could control himself. So he beat the grizzly back, forcing it into a tight compartment of his mind where it clawed at its cage. The arrow pointed to a keyboard hung on the wall. To open the door, he had to type in six numbers and four letters. The animal had no prayer of remembering the sequence, but the man could do it, though he fumbled it twice before managing it on the third attempt.
The door unlocked with a loud thunk of electric magnets shutting off. Then he twisted the knob and hauled the heavy thing open.
First thing he did was slap her arm away from the buzzer. He tried to modify his strength so as to not break her arm, but the grizzly demanded violence for the assault on his ears. She gave a squeak of alarm, but it wasn’t a cry of pain, so the man in him was reassured. And while she stood there, her mouth open in shock, he took the time to use all his senses, orienting himself to the world outside his den.
It was afternoon on a Michigan summer day. The sky was overcast, which was a blessing on his eyes. It also kept the air from being too hot. His home edged the Gladwin State Park, a rustic cabin that belied the expensive electronics that kept his basement a hum of activity.
But that was behind him. In front was a woman, lush and fertile.
